Living on the edge in the North Pacific....with two kids, two dogs, a manic husband and a wife who tries to keep up with the pack.

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Friday, March 29, 2013

Good Friday Tidepooling

Nora and Zoya are in Seattle, and St Mary's is closed for a 4 day weekend in honor of Easter. So I stayed home from work to watch Stuey. Mike Pfeffer stayed home to watch Sophie who had no school either. Mike noticed that there was a minus tide at 10AM, and so off we went to the beaches at Fort Abercrombie to go tide-pooling.

It was a perfect day for it - flat calm and the tide was really out there. I have not gone tide-pooling for ages and it really is amazing what you can find when you flip the rocks. Zoya has my point-and-shoot which takes the good close ups - so no close up animal photos. But we did see lots of very weird crabs, sculpins, eels and even baby sea cucumbers and, best of all, an octopus! I picked up the octopus and suffice it to say it was a very tactile experience. The suction cups and weird muscly motion with slime was slightly distasteful.

I noticed that the sea weeds and kelp are shooting out new shoots. Perhaps in the near future it is time for some seaweed salads! This afternoon we are off to the pass to go sledding. A sort of surf and turf experience - tidepooling by the sea in the AM and sledding in the mountains in the PM.